


from one heart to another's

by cockcrow



Series: english class poetry [1]
Category: Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: F/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 14:29:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9761003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cockcrow/pseuds/cockcrow
Summary: he refuses to let mantuaingrain steely-cold shardsinto his heart that paws for Juliet.he refuses to let veronaindoctrinate impassioned normalcyto his honey-dripped kisses.he refuses for fate to come bearing weapons ofman-made creations when nature with theroses, honeybees, cicadas, and first bloomsinvite warmth and comfort and shelter.





	

**Author's Note:**

> the generic kinds of poems.

ab ovo

    his love begins with glances  
    one looks at the other  
    and the other doesn’t.  
    infatuation, they would call it  
    but the light-hearted feeling in his  
    heart cry otherwise, it has to be  
    love.  
    love for her flowing hair, vivid eyes  
    much like an owl’s keen pair  
    hearts crashing, bearing down the grit.  
    it hurts. fire, but a fire that scorches  
    water, but the choked-off words are  
    all that’s left between them. air  
    doesn’t come.  
    it’s the beginning  
    of the beginning of their end.

 

rosaline

i.  of heartstruck views and glances  
    love crawls and latches onto a heart  
    of Montague birthed.  
    he loves in stark passion  
    aching for the equal devotion  
    his palms yearn for.  
    he yearns for grasping her hair  
    pulling her closer with kisses spilling  
    out of his pockets  
    and whispering the things  
    only she and the moon could hear

ii. carrying the pain with a tightened hand,  
    wielding the arrow from cupid,  
    tears bloom with the intention of  
    being hurt and not cleansing.  
    he weeps to the moon,  
    “why must i be reaching out  
    to a statue of beauty  
    but venus has her body an island.”

iii. the heart-loving is something he is familiar with  
    doing with passion,  
    but the hurt (aftermath) always surprises him.  
    it isn’t of crushing, heat-pooling wounds, but of  
    thousands of tiny fractures and cuts  
    on paper-thin skin.  
    so when he meets Juliet for the first time,  
    the fire blooms again  
    and he trusts the flame to lead to  
    a home for his heart and not a hotel.

 

juliet

i.  these are the beginnings of a flame that consumes  
    the heartbreak into embers  
    it is love but not love  
    it is of home and hearth and warmth of which  
    his heart doesn’t only beat harder/faster,  
    his heart is beating along with another  
    it is the proof of the heat that he revels in  
    it is the beginnings of their passion  
    in which he loves Juliet but not loves  
    but rather builds a home within

ii. loving Juliet fans the wildfire, edging the river,  
    threatening to jump across to the wild expanse.  
    he soon forgets the other.  
    (a past love staying in the past)  
    his love is pure and hard and  
    more than he thinks his heart can handle  
    but loving Juliet is a thing of beauty.  
    she is the witch transposing paper  
    into elegant paper cranes that fly  
    in tranquility and grace  
    of which his heart doesn’t possess.  
    his heart calls beauty a messy thing of which  
    frail limbs will seek for her embrace and  
    quiet kisses are shared between the dragon burns.  
    he knows the fireplace will share the picture of them  
    flushed together, eye-to-eye,  
    making themselves the warmth for the other.

iii. so when fate comes bearing switchblades,  
    pitch forks, and arsenic.  
    love trembles behind the door,  
    warmth pooling outside warily.  
    loving Juliet is no mistake, he mutters,  
    the distance makes the heart grow fonder, he muses  
    he refuses to let mantua  
    ingrain steely-cold shards  
    into his heart that paws for Juliet  
    he refuses to let verona  
    indoctrinate impassioned normalcy  
    to his honey-dripped kisses  
    he refuses for fate to come bearing weapons of  
    man-made creations when nature with the  
    roses, honeybees, cicadas, and first blooms  
    invite warmth and comfort and shelter.

 

verona

    home to the capulets and montagues  
    and the roaring citizens demanding peace.  
    peace, they say,  
    we can’t have more fights  
    we have lost so much to these  
    people with too much anger  
    there is no room for our homes left for us,  
    the citizens of verona  
    and we’ve had enough

       —the citizens

 

to our love that we grew out of clay pots

    love came in forms of  
    hugs, kisses, flowers.  
    peonies in the spring  
    marigolds in the summer  
    asters in the autumn  
    honeyworts in the winter.  
    all carrying something  
    more than just the meaning  
    more than just the language.  
    it carried our love that grew  
    out of clay pots on the terrace.

 

rust love

    i wanted to love you like rust    
    together through thick and thin  
    with time aging us but with beauty developing  
    inside us like metamorphosis  
    and holding you close to me as the contact brought  
    warms hues and something entirely new  
    from the both of us  
    fused of cracked reds and oranges  
    so i loved you like rust  
    something i knew would remain  
    in my heart

 

oceanfront

    she called our love  
    a house built on the oceanfront  
    or a lake house at times.  
    not of wildfires and bonfires  
    but of safety and warmth  
    that settled onto our bones plentiful.  
    she called our love a candlelit dinner  
    or ships that don’t come home shipwrecked.  
    it’s the peppered electricity and thrill,  
    and the comfort of us making it  
    through living and breathing together  
    that worked.

 

hobsons choice

    she smelt of apples and autumn snow,  
    moonlight, warm vanilla, teakwood  
    and the spring roses that grow.  
    with her beauty, the world understood  
    i would yearn for something beautiful with her  
    something permanent and staining as paint.  
    my mind absolute, but i could not deter  
    the trembling of my legs towards the saint.  
    my love is love for her and her eyes and soul  
    where my heart felt as it burned wood, burned coal

 

embers that would come to be

    our love was scorching, burning, electrifying  
    and everything in between  
    it did not surprise me to find  
    the warmth that settled in my lips and cheeks  
    after indulging in of millions, billions of  
    static-charged kisses  
    it did not surprise me to find  
    the blaze in your eye  
    lighting me with  
    lightbulbs and pine-scented candles and stars  
    it did not surprise me to find  
    my knees shaking  
    like a skyscraper demolished to rubble  
    and myself the remains left behind  
    it was the stories i found while  
    touching your skin, holding you tight  
    that told of all the embers that would come to be  
    between us

 

flowers in the spring

    fairies aren’t real  
    venus is beautiful  
    do not love by the book  
    go from A to B  
    flowers bloom in spring  
    i love you.  
    a symphony of things that  
    are true.

 

constellation of our own

    we spent our night  
    pointing up at clouds  
    to see what kind of shape it was  
    to pointing at stars  
    where we saw gemini  
    stars of the twins  
    and so we started making one  
    a constellation of our own  
    of our love, happiness, joy  
    something personal for us  
    and  
    i whispered “i love you”  
    and you did too

 

tybalt

i.   first, it is the vile memory of him,  
    war seeking, fight starting, flame burning,  
    in the heat of battle,  
    sword piercing, wound raising, death making.  
    so it comes to Romeo;  
    the sickly feeling imbued in hate.  
    and nothing more and nothing less.  
    just the sense of hate that doesn’t  
    mean anything personal to him  
    other than their names:  
    Montague and Capulet.

ii.  love welled in his heart  
    for Juliet, he thought  
    a hot, hot day. scorching and burning  
    red steam pouring out Tybalt’s ears.  
    he avoids the fight,  
    says no, refuses,  
    stays away knowing he’ll be ridiculed.  
    he holds a fervent love for Capulets.  
    he stays strong and loves  
    even if he may feel like  
    he’s talking to a statue of ares

iii. fire, burning bright, electric hazards.  
    candles that burn the shipwrecked homes.  
    tears that evapourate into  
    thick, smoggy whirlpools.  
    it hurts to think about  
    Mercutio’s candlewick  
    being cut short  
    in front of his own  
    eyes, legs, arms, heart, soul.  
    and, all the hate he bottled up inside his heart  
    and sliced into tiny, microscopic bits had  
    formed into one, colossal monster of  
    eyes, legs, arms, heart, soul.  
    and it had taken form of a sword left on his side.  
    so with the fire, fire, fire strangling his choked words  
    and the dry (desert, he supplies) tumbleweed in his  
    throat—wanting to cry, wanting to scream, wanting  
    to kill.  
    his legs become his eyes, and his eyes become his  
    heart, and his heart becomes his brain, and his brain  
    becomes his hate and his hate becomes his soul, and  
    his soul becomes a shadow of what he,  
    Romeo, was like.

 

benvolio

i.   the friendship, brotherly love, only a cousin  
    but much more when Benvolio  
    he comes along  
    with a smile forming per second  
    peacemaker, he muses  
    funny kind of a name.  
    their friendship is real  
    it is  
    the familiarity from the two  
    as they love each other  
    in their special ways of  
    keeping the other happy

ii.  heartbreak, and tears  
    of a riverside house.  
    it hurts and the waters start  
    pounding at the door.  
    he lets it.  
    Benvolio is a man of caring,  
    compassion,  
    brotherly love.  
    he confides of his ramming waters,  
    his aching heart  
    never will she love him.  
    he simmers in boiling water,  
    frigid waterfalls  
    the nothingness of going in too deep.  
    Benvolio is a peacemaker,  
    well-wisher,  
    a man of goodwill.  
    he says okay  
    and goes with Benvolio,  
    and maybe he’ll get over the riverside house.

iii. he couldn’t help but think in that moment  
    Benvolio was useless  
    but only for a flicker.  
    blood boiling, seeping, pooling  
    an unnatural wine-red hue  
    flashing  
    he knew that  
    that kind of red was a kind of red that  
    would kill  
    would lead to death  
    would bring ocean-blue weeping.  
    peacemaker, he thought  
    as he hoped peace would come  
    but only rage come upon him as  
    Benvolio carried Mercutio out.  
    only hate can fight hate  
    when love is only just empty platitudes  
    for an enemy.  
    so only for that second  
    he hated Benvolio  
    but only for just that  
    and faced Tybalt.

 

love from you

    the kind of love that captivated me in your ensnaring  
    arms. festering with love that burns  
    retinas, capillaries, nerves. it’s a kind of love  
    that’s painful  
    but not—safety, he answers. It’s a different kind of  
    safety in his heart that warms him up like  
    basking in the beauty of the sun. instead of  
    some love of happiness, or beauty, or eros. it’s  
    a warmth of kinds where he knows even in  
    the dangers of their love, hate, and lives,  
    they’ll make it.

 

electric

    he imagines her touch, electric  
    he kisses her lips, blazing  
    he holds her hands, tight  
    there’s a whole world between them  
    with the minute touching and kissing  
    with the crashing, lingering shock  
    with the embers ignited behind her eyes  
    it’s love that’s more than the two of them

 

emphasis

    the sun began to rise  
    over the turmoil that was the ocean,  
    bathing the world in a  
    strawberry,  
    coquelicot,  
    lemon,  
    all over the crash and depths of the water.  
    he could smell the salt beckoning him.  
    on a backdrop of blue,  
    he held her hand and hoped that  
    crimson  
    wouldn’t show on his face.

 

paper planes

    love that soars  
    he knows what kind of love that is.  
    it’s the kind where  
    he tucks her hair behind her ears  
    they place their foreheads together and just whisper  
    she grasps his shirt and drags him down into the bed  
    it’s the kind where  
    they would spend hours they don’t have  
    together, making paper planes  
    to throw outside the window—a little  
    wish inside each—out through the town.

 

heartache

    in which they are more than  
    a Capulet,  
    a Montague.  
    they are humans with hearts,  
    beating and pumping  
    pain and love and a million other feelings, emotions  
    every single second.  
    they are humans with lungs,  
    inflating and pulling in      
    the mix of oxygen and the smell-of-them,  
    never stopping.  
    they are humans with hands,  
    sharing and giving  
    the kaleidoscope of gifts each greater than the last,  
    always.  
    it’s the heartache,  
    throbbing and yearning,  
    that always makes them remember:  
    they are more than  
    a Capulet,  
    a Montague.  
    they are humans with hearts,  
    loving and hurting.

 

honeycomb

    sweet, sugary  
    pleasantries.  
    love meant  
    for their hearts, lungs.  
    kisses with flowers bouquets:  
    rose; lily; tulip; cosmo; daisy; bluebell  
    honeybees and honeycombs.  
    bees and beehives.  
    pain blossom from idyllic love.  
    heartbreak and heartache.  
    from honeycombs come honey  
    and with honey comes the sweet  
    that’s never good for you.

 

to which our love grew too much to handle

    love is the strings when they  
    untangle, unravel, and entwine  
    with another’s heart.  
    love is the honeybees  
    flying and fleeing  
    for the honey-dripped needs of theirs.  
    love is the trembling of a hand  
    softly holding, grasping, and confirming  
    that the other exists.  
    so when our love grew too much for us to handle,  
    we cried as the knife sliced, poison dripped.  
    we keened as our lives became entwined with  
    the malice of fate instead.  
    we let our vision fade into the whites you’d see in  
    the winters we didn’t get to share.

 

he wishes life had given him a silver spoon

    so when he finds  
    her dead in the coffin  
    roses, asters, lilies, buttercups, lavender  
    adorning her body like a frame  
    like mother nature showcasing  
    a beauty who’s flame had been  
    blown out into a single trail of  
    ashen smoke withering into  
    the star-pressed skies,  
    he cries  
    not prettily like a  
    movie in hollywood  
    drama on television  
    damsel-in-distress.  
    he cries like a gushing ocean  
    crashing down like  
    thrown pebbles on a lake,  
    ripples left in its wake.  
    he cries like a crackling bonfire  
    that pops against skin  
    scorching and burning and  
    smelling of death  
    and  
    of a wildfire that drowns everything out.  
    he cries like shattered glass that crack with  
    fragments scattered around almost like  
    a trophy celebrating  
    with the fresh red wine  
    pearling at the hands.

 

a dram of poison

    the poison is a blessing  
    to get out  
    to stop  
    to cry without crying.  
    he can’t imagine life without  
    the one who brought him to life  
    the one who breathed life into him  
    the one who embodies life.  
    he can’t imagine love without  
    the one who bears of his love  
    the one who loves him back  
    the one who embodies love.  
    grab the poison, get a drink  
    mix  
    and throw the head back.  
    swallow.

 

momentary

    he thinks  
    she says i love you  
    he thinks  
    she said anything at all  
    he thinks  
    she was alive  
    he thinks  
    fate wrought pain not joy  
    he thinks  
    he should’ve been smarter  
    he thinks  
    love hurts  
    he thinks  
    he feels the touch of Juliet’s lips  
    on his.  
    he thinks  
    until it’s white noise

 

time borrowed

    their faded memories,  
    half spoken words.  
    only the thought of their presence  
    is left for them  
    so when in the after  
    where there’s only white and nothing  
    in between  
    he thinks it’s fate when  
    “i love you”  
    trembles out of his cold, cold lips into  
    her passionate solidness

    —loving beyond

 

statue

    so maybe  
    their love wasn’t permanent  
    but it did crackle  
    like an ember that was  
    bigger than a forest.  
    it was the experience;  
    it was the story;  
    it was the meanwhile.  
    so even while,  
    a golden statue is shown  
    to citizens of verona,  
    their story will last even longer,  
    inscripted into the memories  
    of those who remember,  
    of those who smell the roses.

     — after


End file.
